Since 1870 the château and the forest have been under the domination of the state. There is a chapter in Dumas' "The Regent's Daughter," entitled "A Room in the Hotel at Rambouillet," which gives some little detail respecting the town and the forest. There is no hotel in Rambouillet to-day known as the "Royal Tiger," though there is a "Golden Lion." "Ten minutes later the carriage stopped at the Tigre-Royal. A woman, who was waiting, came out hastily, and respectfully assisted the ladies to alight, and then guided them through the passages of the hotel, preceded by a valet carrying lights. "A door opened, Madame Desroches drew back to allow Hélène and Sister Thêrèse to pass and they soon found themselves on a soft and easy sofa, in front of a bright fire. "The room was large and well furnished, but the taste was severe, for the style called rococo was not yet introduced. There were four doors; the first was that by which they had entered--the second led to the dining-room, which was already lighted and warmed--the third led into a richly appointed bedroom--the fourth did not open.... "While the things which we have related were passing in the parlour of the Hôtel Tigre-Royal, in another apartment of the same hotel, seated near a large fire, was a man shaking the snow from his boots, and untying the strings of a large portfolio. This man was dressed in the hunting livery of the house of Orleans; the coat red and silver, large boots, and a three-cornered hat, trimmed with silver. He had a quick eye, a long, pointed nose, a round and open forehead, which was contradicted by thin and compressed lips." * * * * * Compiègne, like Crépy-en-Valois, Dammartin, Villers-Cotterets, and other of the towns and villages of the district, which in the fourteenth century belonged to the younger branch of the royal house, enter largely into the romances of Dumas, as was but natural, seeing that this region was the land of his birth. The most elaborate and purely descriptive parts are found in "The Wolf Leader," wherein are presented so many pictures of the forest life of the region, and in "The Taking of the Bastille," in that part which describes the journey of Ange Pitou to Paris. Crépy, Compiègne, Senlis, Pierrefonds, are still more celebrated in Dumas' writings for glorious and splendid achievements--as they are with respect to the actual fact of history, and the imposing architectural monuments which still remain to illustrate the conditions under which life endured in mediæval times. At Crépy, now a sleepy old-world village, is still seen the establishment of the Valois of which Dumas wrote; and another _grande maison_ of the Valois was at Villers-Cotterets--a still more somnolent reminder of the past. At Compiègne, only, with its magnificent Hôtel de Ville, does one find the activities of a modern-day life and energy.